In the foundry industry, it is well recognized that cooperating mold sections must remain aligned so that a correctly formed molding or casting can be produced when the mold cavity is filled with molten metal. If, during the process of forming the cooperating mold sections or during the metal filling process, the cooperating mold sections become misaligned or separated the molding or casting will likely be improperly formed. The resulting casting will often be outside of manufacturing tolerances and, as such, unusable.
It has also been recognized in the foundry industry that a problem exists in detecting and in measuring the amount of any such misalignment or separation of the cooperating mold sections. A conventional method for detecting any such molding misalignment or separation is to take a sampling of the resulting molded products or moldings and to simply measure them for such misalignment or separation. However, due to the shape or configurations of such molds, it is often not feasible to measure each and every such casting resulting from it. The shape or configuration of the casting may lend itself to difficulties in determining whether any misalignment or separation has occurred during the process. More importantly, the particular shape or configuration involved may make it extremely difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to accurately measure the amount of misalignment or separation which has occurred to determine whether a tolerance has been met or violated.